The Idiot didn’t come to Crete looking for sandy beaches.

That was wise because Greece’s largest island features many more bouldery, cliffy, gravelly, mountainy, rocky, pebbly and stony (you get the idea) patches of seaside than strips of fine sand.

A gravelly, pebbly, rocky and stony beach.

A bouldery, cliffy and mountainy coast.

A strip of sand.

In fact, there are probably more archeological sites on Crete than sandy beaches.

A Minoan sandcastle.

That’s fine with The Idiot because he liked mixing it up on the Cretan seashore while he MedTrekked over 600 kilometers during the past month. 80 percent rough and rocky terrain versus 20 percent soft sandy beaches is a reasonable blend.

The Idiot actually enjoys rugged hiking terrain and his image of the Cretan coast – the rocks, the waves, the cliffs ahead — is embodied by this view from a seaside table where he lunched in Mochlos.

The Idiot’s Crete.

Everyone, Idiot or not, has a favorite stretch of beach, sandy or otherwise, in Crete.

My friend Eve Siegel likes the pebbly beach at Kakkos Bay east of Irapetra while Academy Award winning cinematographer Walter Lassally has a sweet spot for the beach in Stavros where he filmed the iconic dance scene in “Zorba the Greek” almost fifty years ago.

Pebbly beaches have fans.

“Anthony Quinn danced Zorba right there,” points out Walter Lassally.

My own favorite, and very isolated, bouldery/cliffy/gravelly/mountainy/pebbly/rocky/stony beach is east of the Samaria Gorge near Loutro. I marvel at the contrasting clump of trees.

The Idiot gets stoned on trees.

And although I MedTrekked some long strips of sand in different parts of Crete, my own favorite sandy beaches are comparatively small and have off-beat features.

I like the one in Matala because it has the one-time hippie-hangout caves as a backdrop while Vai sits amid Europe’s only natural grove of palm trees.

Caves are holy.

A palm tree play date.

And then there’s today’s (May 18) beach/swimming hole du jour at the bottom of a ravine in the middle of nowhere (http://bit.ly/kGtayZ).

SPOT shot by The Idiot in the water.

Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."